X " l i'M:i X ' X | Shbeman, a< i Life of the Sparrow Hawk. 1 I 5 



According i<> the economy of these Hawks incubation, the brood- 

 ing ;iikI the feeding «>r the young, and the guarding of the nest was 

 the pari of the female, while the male hunted for tin- family; only 

 once was he seen in or near the nest. A few times he circled over- 

 bead and joined in the creaming, when I was near the nest, his 

 notes Bounding thinner and in a higher key than tho e of his mate. 

 At ne 1 1 linn . the female made ;i greal com mot ion with her scream- 

 ing and Bying at me, notwithstanding all her noise and blu iter be 

 wa an anant cow aid, never coming nearer than four or five feet 

 of my Inad. With a, hundredth part of the provocation a Red- 

 winged Blackbird or a Brown Thrasher would have hit, perhaps 



hurt a trespasser on its domain. After a time the female recog- 

 nized me and began to scream, while I was still distaul and nearly 

 hidden by trees. The neighbors --aid that they knew when I 

 appeared out of doors from the screaming of the Hawk. Other 

 people, men, women, and children daily frequented the enclosure 

 in which stands the bird blind, hut her screams were reserved for 

 me alone. To guard the nest she sat in the dead willow. In 

 April both of the pair sat in the top of the tree, during incubation 

 and the earlier days of the young the branches extending from the 



middle of the tree were n-ed, and during the last ten days of the 



nest the top branches were again occupied. 



Hunting was done for the most pari to the southwest, the land 

 1 here being devoted to farming, while the buildings of our decadent 

 hamlet are situated in the other directions. Immediately to the 



southwest of the hawk tree lay an eighty acre cornfield abounding 



in ground squirrels. Not a tree nor a hush intervenes between this 



tree and the nearest farm yard a half mile away. Sitting on her 



lofty perch the female often spied her mate while he was still afar 

 off, and with much screaming flew to meet him, and secure the prey 

 he bore in his talons. Sometimes the meeting was no more than 

 two or three hundred feet from the tree, but it was impossible to 



see her manner of seizing the quarry. Sometimes the male, still 

 holding the prey, dashed by her to the tree, where still screaming 

 she secured it. Once a ground squirrel retaining its head was 



brought in, all others were beheaded ones. The birds, headless, 

 tailless, and wingless, were well plucked, yet the mother bird 



appeared to find some work to do on them before she delivered them 



